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Author Topic: Japanese Movies  (Read 930 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Japanese Movies
« on: April 27, 2017, 05:19:38 AM »
Here is my opening question:

Japanese actors appear very mannered. This is particularly true in period pieces, with samurai often acting in what seem caricaturing ways, but can also be quite evident in films about the XXth century. Or is it? I am unable to attest if the actors are being true to how people talk or used to talk or if this is due to Japan's specific style of acting.
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MartinTeller

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Re: Japanese Movies
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2017, 10:52:52 AM »
Japanese performances are just as varied as any other culture. Performances in an Ozu film are vastly different from those in a Kurosawa film, or a Shunji Iwai film, or a Takashi Miike film.

In general I think that -- just as in American cinema -- Japanese performances have trended more "realistic" in the past few decades.

Teproc

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Re: Japanese Movies
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2017, 11:40:23 AM »
Isn't this tied with the kabuki tradition in the case of post-war Japanese cinema ? I remember reading that somewhere... but then again, that's a pretty close parallel to the way we think of Hollywood Golden Age acting as "theatrical".
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jdc

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Re: Japanese Movies
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2017, 04:25:55 PM »
My limited experience of older Japanese films is that they act more realistic than the golden age of Hollywood.  At least they didn't seem to have Hays code so I thought the few films I had watched from and during that era had more realistic inter-human responses.

But if you are going to look back in time I am not sure how to judge any more than if I were watching a Hollywood film today or early American history or earlier European history.  Most of it doesn't seem realistic to me and all seem to be some kind of modern caricature of somebody is thinking of the era. 
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